What does everyone think of this device so far. My wife is out of contract and this might be her first smartphone. Any opinions are much appreciated.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA Premium App
I'm on my second one in less than a week. First one died randomly rebooting about every 5 minutes. Now my new one I just got yesterday just randomly rebooted.
When I took it back, the rep said it just needed hard reset, so she did it, then it rebooted in her hand! It was classic.
Terrible track record so far!
Outta the box, meh.
4 hours outta the box with some tweaking (root, freeze bloat, new launcher, etc) Best phone I've ever had.
Only downside is the locked bootloader which means no AOSP ROMS. But I think I can live with that.
Also MANY people have whined and cried about the penTile display, in my opinion the screen is beautiful. Some apps aren't optimized for the new higher resolution yet so they look a little "off" but it's no big deal. No fault of the phone but of app designers. It should get fixed in due course.
Sent from my DROID X2
Love it so far
I upgraded from the original droid running cyanogen 7 and I love the X2 so far. I installed laucherpro right away and rooted to install wired and wireless tether and freeze some of the bloatware that came with it.
I had a couple random reboots at first but I have not had one for a couple weeks now.
I was a little worried about the battery life at first but after a few days my battery must have finally been broken in and Im pleasantly surprised with the battery life.
No matter what you read elsewhere the screen is AMAZING... you can see it outside while its bright on the lowest setting, you bump it up to the highest and you can see it perfectly in direct sunlight.
People will also bash how much ram this has. Lots of people think that only having 512mb is a horrible thing. But if you actually do some research and learn about how android uses ram you'll realize that extra ram does no good. Essentially if its not being used its being wasted. I run a widget that I can click to see how much ram is left and its usually between 50 and 100. My friend has an atrix and his is usually around 400... which proves that hes not using the extra 512 he has available. So maybe down the road there will be some apps or a new version of android that will need 1gb or ram but i highly doubt it will be before Im up for another upgrade.
Rooting is a must
This was my upgrade from the Droid Incredible also rooted using Sky-Raider, and Cyanogen(mod) 7.0.3. The qHD and the dual core processor sold me on the phone.
After unboxing the I was struck by the brilliance and clarity of the screen and the phone was quite responsive at times. Easily viewable in direct sunlight (even when dimmed)but the phone was hanging when navigating to the home screen and the batter life was less than a day with light moderate use.
I rooted the phone using GingerBreak and after removing Bloatware, it is the best phone that I have seen for the price $199.99 with upgr.
The phone is worth the money, brilliant screen, responsive, and I am satisfied with the performance for now until there is a stable rom for it. Just ran benchmark with Quadrant Standard at 2128!
Read the engadget review posted 6-5-2011.
I really appreciate the opinions everyone. It seems like a great phone, but I think I'm getting her the Droid 3 simply because she's coming from the env touch (assbag of a phone btw) and would appreciate the physical keyboard. Thanks again.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA Premium App
You folks had better luck than me. First the good points that made me want to keep it.
Build
Display
Battery life
Call quality
Speed for game emulators
Radio reception
Easy to root
Form factor suits one hand operation better than other 4.3"
Tegra 2 has very good audio quality
Why I returned it.
Where is the memory? I appreciate that 108mb of the 512mb ram appears to be allocated to the GPU, but if you add up the OS, Home UI, OS tasks, opened user apps and free ram, there is still about 160mb missing out of 404mb. You can apply a memory script to help out, but the memory slowly leaks away, even with the script. The DX2 starts to lag.
MP3 pops and clicks. This is probably due to the low operational ram mentioned above, but even when not multitasking, there are random pops and clicks and gets much worse if multitasking.
Flash can spike the device temps past 115 degrees. Flash does not appear to get on with the DX2 firmware. Heat spikes and the battery is drained like the DX2 is on an LTE radio.
Random reboots. It seems to mainly happen during web browsing, Flash playback and playing video files. While I was debating on keeping it or not (due to the good things mentioned at top) and rationalizing that the issues would be fixed, my DX2 rebooted while updating a few market apps. I considered that a sign to return it.
Seems better to return it and see if they fix the problems, rather than get stuck with the DX2, IF the problems are not fixed.
IF they fix the issues, I will buy the DX2 again, or wait for the Bionic. I am more likely to get the DX2 again, since I doubt a 4.5" qHD LCD display, dual core and LTE will have very good battery life.
The DX2 would rock REAL hard if the issues are fixed. I have a gTablet with same chipset, 512mb ram and Froyo and it does not have the issues noted.
added:
I miss the DX2, mainly due to the sweet display Back to my Incredible for now
For my part, I've seemingly resolved the quirky behaviour by enabling the performance profile. The "medium" setting would cause reboots and strange laggy app issues. I'm still likely to get the Bionic later as well, and trade this one in for credit. I tend to swap between my upgrade, and my wife's line upgrade.
Ruoh said:
For my part, I've seemingly resolved the quirky behaviour by enabling the performance profile. The "medium" setting would cause reboots and strange laggy app issues. I'm still likely to get the Bionic later as well, and trade this one in for credit. I tend to swap between my upgrade, and my wife's line upgrade.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Where is the profile setup?
Dark_Wizard said:
Where is the profile setup?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
settings> battery & data manager> battery mode
stronggeek said:
settings> battery & data manager> battery mode
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thx!
10char
If you don't need 4G LTE or a front-facing camera, it's a great purchase on Verizon. First dual-core phone for them! More power means longer shelf-life for keeping up with demanding apps/games. Large qHD res screen, Tegra 2 processor, solid build quality and pretty decent camera. Some people don't like the Blur UI, but it's not as bad as it used to be. You can always replace with a third party launcher too.
If this phone didn't look exactly like the original Droid X, people would probably be talking about it more. I'm especially enjoying the tegra 2 gaming - Riptide Gp (link)
Mine is working alright for me, I can attest the Motorola bloatware does slow down the phone quite a bit.
I also have Quadrant only reading "1 Core" so I don't know if Quadrant needs to be updated or the rumors are true that the CPU is limited till we get the Ginger from Motorola.
As far as hardware goes, I doubt the 512mb of RAM will make a difference once we start using custom ROMs and remove quite a bit of the bloat. The Tegra 2 seems to make everything really snappy, the battery is better than my Droid 2, I do miss the keyboard though, so your wife may really really like the keyboard or hate it. I am a really really really big fan of the keyboard phones, but my phone died and they offered to let me upgrade early so I went with a Tegra 2.
Although with all the Motorola software / Verizon software etc. It runs pretty sluggish at times and the significant other's Captivate will run circles around my phone despite being just the Galaxy S internals. She likes to rub that in.
I just smile and wait till I end up running Liberty or MIUI on my phone so I can destroy her smug-ness.
I'm coming from a BB Storm and am super impressed by the DX2...all of the reasons I told myself I DIDN'T need an android phone are the reasons I am using this sucker so often. Love the apps. Here are some of my concerns:
HEAT - The plate below the battery cover, where the speaker is becomes too hot to touch at some points. After reading some of the forums it seems that this will occur more if I am watching flash or doing some major downloading. Three weeks in, it seems to be managed better as I am using Advance App Killer whenever I use the phone to kill process that start when I am doing nothing more than texting.
BATTERY LIFE - At first I was getting about 3-4 hours with moderate to heavy use. As another poster stated above, the battery seems to have broken in a bit, though it seems I will always need to pack a charger if I will be out for more than five or six hours.
MP4 PLAYBACK - I have tried to put 1-2gig mp4's on the SD card in a folder created called "_movies", but the X2 seems to struggle playing these files. On videos I have made using the X2, playback is not a problem. Error message is "File cannot be displayed or played". Annoying.
DISAPPEARING / GHOSTING APPS: Similarly, I have dropped adk files into a folder created called "apps" on the SD card (or sdcard-ext as IDed in file search). I have used my laptop in two ways to write the files: 1) with X2 tethered via USB using Windows 7 to copy/paste files on the SD and 2) removed the SD from X2 and plugged mini-SD into adapter to write files directly to SD.
UNIQUE NOTIFICATION: My BB had the ability to assign separate ringtones to different email accounts...I'm sure that I can do this with an app, but it seems so much easier in the BB settings menu thand the android.
So in researching these issues it seems all paths lead back to one thing: Rooting the phone. I have gingerbreak and am ready to do this, but am reluctant to do it knowing I have about 28 hours setting this phone up custom and I know I will have to start from scratch on that customization. Can anyone confirm that post-root I will still be utilizing the MOTOBLUR? I read a lot about people who hate it, but I like the 7 screens and widgets.
Just my 2 cents on the device. Overall, very happy. I'm sure I'll be extremely happy post-root as I think I am reading that rooting the device will solve a lot of the file and OS issues listed above.
Rock on, great forum. FIRST POST. android noob.
Like it so far , pretty much as good as the X1. The screen looks great , they really improved the visibility in sunlight.
Otherwise I do have a few of the common issues like music skip, slow screen turn on, and random reboots. I figure they will get sorted when I can get a better rom installed.
I'm liking the X2 just fine. I upgraded from the Incredible and I'm glad I didn't go for the DI2. Dual Core...hell yea! Beautiful 4.3" display...hell yea! My guess is that things will get better with easy rooting and Gingerbread. Besides, I didn't really like my DI until I started using customs ROMs and cleaned out the bloatware.
I love it and dont need 4g and wont get it here for years
If your not in 4g area and want a phone better than all the 4g phones get this one. i love this phone i had thunderbolt for a bit but it sucked it lagged like a Mother Trucker. I hate that the bootloader is locked cuz i love stock roms but o well ill live i have launcher pro plus running on mine with it rooted and ALOT of stuff FROZEN it makes it way faster and runs really smooth. i have heard alot of ppl complain about how much launcher pro sucks on this device but it think it works great i may have it have to reload widgets and such 1 out of a 100 times win i hit the home button but prob more like 1 out of 250. also i have used golauncher but i had a few problems with it stock blur actually works decent to but i dont like the look of it and i love 3d app drawer. i cant say ull love the phone but i know i do its by far best phone on verizon. Now if i could get a nexus on verizon id b the happiest man alive but o well i cant so ill have to live with my dx2 until they get a nexus or until another carrier can get service in southern il.
Related
So my upgrade has come along and I'm debating on which phone I can get.
I'm currently leaning on the HTC DNA, obviously.
I am slightly dissapointed from lack of expandable storage, but I can live with 16GB, I don't watch movies much or listen to music.
I mostly stream movies or YT videos.
Gaming wise I'm mostly just emulating and I'm sure a simple game of pokemon will not heat up my device. I will play retro-styled games or remakes from time to time such as Sonic CD and Radiant HD.
As much as I love flashing ROM's on my thunderbolt, I think I'll stick to stock until a simple root method is out, and will most probably root for Titanium backup and adblocking, nothing more (However thanks to the new adblock app I can disable ad's without root, but it will drain the battery faster)
So my main questions are these:
For previous TB owners, how's life w/o the kickstand? Truth be told I will miss that kickstand, it was perfect.
I love elegant looking things, is the 1080p screen really worth having? And do you notice any sort of lag on the DNA doing simple things such as running a livewallpaper or watching a few youtube videos?
Is the batterylife good? Really anything that can outlast my TB is great, I can go through about 1/2 a day with the type of usage I use my TB for (of course taking into account I'm running liquidsmooth desense ICS4.0).
These are really all I have to ask, I'll likely get a screen protector; but as far as cases go I prefer to go without. So I will ask; how durable is the phone? How easy is it to scratch the screen? I've heard a few people saying the screen shattering after dropping it on a hard surface once, which scares me. I drop my TB A LOT. But it's only had one small scratch and no cracks whatsoever in the 2 years I've had it.
Also I have another question regarding if I should get this phone for my father as well.
He is the average android user, has never heard of ROOT and barely knows how to access his widgets. He currently has a TB aswell with an extended battery. He is constantly recieveing calls, texting, and checking his yahoo mail (He's the average busy, busy man).
I'm feeling the note 2 is better for him, since I'm going to take a guess and say 11GB of freespace isn't going to be enough for him. Plus I'd see how S-Pen would be useful for him (I'm not too much of a fan of the S-Pen, I like to use my phone onehandid a lot.
Had a TB. Missed my kickstand a bit when I went to the Razr. Got over it pretty quick. Get the DNA. you will love it. I still have yet to root and Rom. Will get there eventually. This phone makes the Bolt seem like a playskool toy. Lol...
I haven't looked back at the TB. The wireless charging I love. My TB usb connections were always loose causing charging issues. The smaller phone felt small in my hands. I'm 6,3 and the DNA is perfect size. I do miss the larger battery and kickstand however with the fast charge option with the current roms I get almost a half charge while at lunch. Which will last me till midnight with Heavy use! As for kickstand I remember some case out there has one built in.
There's just so much awesome with the DNA! 1080p ftw!
sent from my rooted DNA
Lol, yes.
Is a Lamborghini a worthy upgrade from a Civic?
S121Guy said:
I haven't looked back at the TB. The wireless charging I love. My TB usb connections were always loose causing charging issues. The smaller phone felt small in my hands. I'm 6,3 and the DNA is perfect size. I do miss the larger battery and kickstand however with the fast charge option with the current roms I get almost a half charge while at lunch. Which will last me till midnight with Heavy use! As for kickstand I remember some case out there has one built in.
There's just so much awesome with the DNA! 1080p ftw!
sent from my rooted DNA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, been looking at a a few more reviews; seems like the phone for me.
Not sure about my dad though; I know the note 2 is out of the picture since it's a tad on the big side.
DNA is out as well since he wants to use his current micro SD card. Look's like I'll have to get him an s3, still a pretty decent device.
making a choice in 2 weeks
So wife gave me clearance to drop the TB. Looking at the DNA and 8X. I told her I swear I will not root (the stipulation with upgrade). I never could get the phone to work as good as new with a root, and really, I don't run much rooted stuff.
I just installed TwistedUmbrella's ICS ROM and enjoy it. I never liked either Sense or Stock Android, always ran with either GoLauncher, or now my daily is SSLauncher.
I have already seen all the vids on performance and appearance and what not. Personal opinion on rooting. Why root when the custom rom isn't going to be an major upgrade (see TB!) from what its running now? Other than removing the Verizon bloatware, and side installing apps like Tethers or 'black market' apps, I can just run SSL and call it good, right?
I am not a 'power user', mostly music for it. Occasional facebook, and XDA. So what limits does the no-sd option leave me? How many songs am I looking at before I am screwed and have to pay for some cloud service?
Thanks guys, everyone on this site has been a major help in everything I have done with the TB to make it last this long!
interesting
Yes.
Get the DNA, you wont regret it
if you DONT get the DNA, you WILL regret it. forever.
rajuabju said:
Yes.
Get the DNA, you wont regret it
if you DONT get the DNA, you WILL regret it. forever.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know its a positive upgrade, just curious about running the alternate launcher if that will suffice for customizing, and the amount of music on the 16G card.
My music is scattered about 5 folders and there is a ton of apks, zips, ROMs and backups, so figuring out my actual music quantity for comparison is a little daunting. Call me lazy, hoping you guys can give me an idea on that amount of space.
jerrya said:
I know its a positive upgrade, just curious about running the alternate launcher if that will suffice for customizing, and the amount of music on the 16G card.
My music is scattered about 5 folders and there is a ton of apks, zips, ROMs and backups, so figuring out my actual music quantity for comparison is a little daunting. Call me lazy, hoping you guys can give me an idea on that amount of space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I run Apex without issue. I need the customization. After Android and bloatware you get about 11gig on your phone. How much your music will fill up depends on the size of each music file. I use a bunch of FLAC files so I only have a few albums on there and still have 6 gig left to play with. Just means you have to swap out your music more often. Still love the phone despite the small space.
Memnoch73 said:
I run Apex without issue. I need the customization. After Android and bloatware you get about 11gig on your phone. How much your music will fill up depends on the size of each music file. I use a bunch of FLAC files so I only have a few albums on there and still have 6 gig left to play with. Just means you have to swap out your music more often. Still love the phone despite the small space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks Memnoch!
Keep em coming folks. Looking for more opinions!
Spaded21 said:
Is a Lamborghini a worthy upgrade from a Civic?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Loving that statement haha!
I came from the Droid Charge (the crappy Samsung alternative to the TBolt), and I'll tell you I love this thing to death. I thought Super AMOLED plus was as good as it could get but boy does this screen prove me wrong. 16GB isn't a problem for me. The Charge came with 32GB but it was on a card, a slow one, so I never filled it up because it slowed the phone down so much. Having this 16GB full I saw no difference in the speed of the phone. I like Sense better than TouchWiz, but I'm sure a launcher would kill most of it if that's what you want.
As far as music goes, I was a little bummed that it isn't compatible with DoubleTwist at the moment because there's no mass storage connection option, so all my iTunes music won't play on it (it's all AIFF). On the upside, with the beats audio the music I've taken the time to load onto google music streams great, sounds almost as good as my ipod in my car (which plugs in USB) through the aux jack. And I'm an audio nerd, so I was impressed with that.
I would say take the plunge, you won't be disappointed.
Yes the DNA is worth it
Sent from my HTC6435LVW using xda app-developers app
Yeah, seriously man, it's a HUGE upgrade.
Looking at the two side by side, my TB just seems kind of... dumpy. If you're into elegance you'll wonder how you stuck with the TB this long. And when you're actually using it -- no comparison. I was running Liquid's ICS ROM as well and while it did the job, it's still kinda clunky (especially the recent apps). Whereas the DNA just flies. And the screen is ridiculous.
You'll probably get over the kickstand (I didn't use mine too much but thought it was a cool feature), and sure, the storage is definitely a trade-off. And I preferred AOSP on my Bolt, but I'm honestly dealing with Sense just fine. Root and ROM and few tweaks and it's more than usable. I always liked Sense's cameras and the text selection zoom thing they have going on. The messaging app is pretty nice, too.
I can't comment on its finish's durability. I keep my phones naked but don't tend to drop or abuse them much. But with Gorilla Glass 2 and the matte back, I think you'll be fine. Battery is also okay. It should get you through a full day, but it's nothing to write home about.
Anyway, yeah, you should probably get it.
Thanks guys, appreciate all the opinions. Maybe it's time to 'cloud up' and start using those services.
Sent from my ThunderBolt using xda premium
The Thunderbolt was a hell of a device in its time, but the DNA blows it away. The DNA is definitely much smoother. Specifically noting the screen transitions, i have seldom seen it lagging or jittery. Tho by the end of its life my thunderbolt had seen more roms than a Nintendo emulator. So i guess my experience with the thunderbolt "stock" isn't great. The playstation emulator seems to run flawlessly on the dna, as well I've had good experiences video streaming which always seemed to be a problem on the TB (never could get the youtube app to work right). I've had good experience with google play music handling my music and just putting a select playlist on my phones memory. The audio quality just playing though an auxiliary port in my car is much better than the thunderbolt. The battery lasts longer as well. You wont go all day with heavy use but it is definitely better than the thunderbolt. I do miss the kickstand tho.
kimo hands said:
The Thunderbolt was a hell of a device in its time, but the DNA blows it away. The DNA is definitely much smoother. Specifically noting the screen transitions, i have seldom seen it lagging or jittery. Tho by the end of its life my thunderbolt had seen more roms than a Nintendo emulator. So i guess my experience with the thunderbolt "stock" isn't great. The playstation emulator seems to run flawlessly on the dna, as well I've had good experiences video streaming which always seemed to be a problem on the TB (never could get the youtube app to work right). I've had good experience with google play music handling my music and just putting a select playlist on my phones memory. The audio quality just playing though an auxiliary port in my car is much better than the thunderbolt. The battery lasts longer as well. You wont go all day with heavy use but it is definitely better than the thunderbolt. I do miss the kickstand tho.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! And I never really got into the kickstand. The only time I would use the kickstand is when I plugged in to watch something, which meant I couldn't do both, or when I was listening to music to stand it up while plugged in. But usually lay down for that since its a ***** to do screen actions without the phone moving.
Seems my only concern now is storage, I will have to see just how much my music takes.
I'm a bit excited, I see adrynalyn lurking around these parts. I recognize him from my time with the thunderbolt.
Sent from my ADR6400L using xda app-developers app
zomgalama said:
I'm a bit excited, I see adrynalyn lurking around these parts. I recognize him from my time with the thunderbolt.
Sent from my ADR6400L using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No! I promised no rooting! He is not allowed!
Sent from my ThunderBolt using xda premium
Hi,
Hope this is an OK place to post. I have a completely stock Droid Incredible 4G that I bought brand new a few months ago. I haven't rooted it yet, though I'm not completely opposed to the idea.
- Just wondering from other users if I should expect this phone to be decently smooth & zippy without any noticeable lag when launching apps or browsing?
It just seems like there are big lags when opening apps (sometimes many seconds, especially when first woken up). This seems much slower than my old Incredible. And internet-based apps or browsers seem to take many seconds to load info as well, even on our stupid-fast FIOS WiFi at work (or on LTE). I may be mistaken, but in general it feels slower in some ways than my original Incredible.
- Any chance something could cause this or I might have a dud??
BACKGROUND
I bought this after owning an original Droid Eris, then upgrading to the 1st generation Droid Incredible. I'm a huge fan of the Sense interface (only thing that makes Android nice to me). But my Incredible was just getting a bit old and having problems with Sense crashing often, the browser always crashing when launched, etc.
So I got the Incredible 4G expecting at least a decently noticeable increase in overall smoothness and performance over the original Incredible, based on the much faster processor and newer OS. I knew it wasn't the absolute fastest phone out, but didn't need that. Just wanted something without a gigantic screen.
I got the phone brand new, and have put mostly very common and popular apps on it (e.g., Handcent, SwiftKey, Facebook, Rhapsody, Pandora, Flixter, etc). I'm using about 50-60% RAM, and about 60+% of available phone app storage space. There's a ton of space on internal card and external SD. Most running apps appear to be stock apps that I don't think I can disable or uninstall.
- Anything general to look for to determine causes or general sluggishness?
I 'might' be open to rooting this if there was a VERY stable build of 4.1 running Sense. I'm hoping JellyBean will help a bit in the performance area, but who knows if Verizon will ever release it.
Thanks!
Sluggish
jethrodesign said:
Hi,
Hope this is an OK place to post. I have a completely stock Droid Incredible 4G that I bought brand new a few months ago. I haven't rooted it yet, though I'm not completely opposed to the idea.
- Just wondering from other users if I should expect this phone to be decently smooth & zippy without any noticeable lag when launching apps or browsing?
It just seems like there are big lags when opening apps (sometimes many seconds, especially when first woken up). This seems much slower than my old Incredible. And internet-based apps or browsers seem to take many seconds to load info as well, even on our stupid-fast FIOS WiFi at work (or on LTE). I may be mistaken, but in general it feels slower in some ways than my original Incredible.
- Any chance something could cause this or I might have a dud??
BACKGROUND
I bought this after owning an original Droid Eris, then upgrading to the 1st generation Droid Incredible. I'm a huge fan of the Sense interface (only thing that makes Android nice to me). But my Incredible was just getting a bit old and having problems with Sense crashing often, the browser always crashing when launched, etc.
So I got the Incredible 4G expecting at least a decently noticeable increase in overall smoothness and performance over the original Incredible, based on the much faster processor and newer OS. I knew it wasn't the absolute fastest phone out, but didn't need that. Just wanted something without a gigantic screen.
I got the phone brand new, and have put mostly very common and popular apps on it (e.g., Handcent, SwiftKey, Facebook, Rhapsody, Pandora, Flixter, etc). I'm using about 50-60% RAM, and about 60+% of available phone app storage space. There's a ton of space on internal card and external SD. Most running apps appear to be stock apps that I don't think I can disable or uninstall.
- Anything general to look for to determine causes or general sluggishness?
I 'might' be open to rooting this if there was a VERY stable build of 4.1 running Sense. I'm hoping JellyBean will help a bit in the performance area, but who knows if Verizon will ever release it.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just got the Incredible 4g as a warranty replacement for the Rezound. It came new in a sealed box. I was excited to get a newer processor and I don't mind the smaller screen. But it seems sluggish or laggy when opening apps. I've done a factory reset twice. I took it in to Verizon and they tried to tell me it was a "slower phone" than the rezound even though it has a the S4 vs S3 processor. I've disabled a lot of the apps that come with the phone and uninstalled quite a few of the apps I ran without issues on the Rezound and on a DroidX before that. Has anyone else had issues? Wondering if rooting and running a custom rom would help?
jethrodesign said:
Hi,
Hope this is an OK place to post. I have a completely stock Droid Incredible 4G that I bought brand new a few months ago. I haven't rooted it yet, though I'm not completely opposed to the idea.
- Just wondering from other users if I should expect this phone to be decently smooth & zippy without any noticeable lag when launching apps or browsing?
It just seems like there are big lags when opening apps (sometimes many seconds, especially when first woken up). This seems much slower than my old Incredible. And internet-based apps or browsers seem to take many seconds to load info as well, even on our stupid-fast FIOS WiFi at work (or on LTE). I may be mistaken, but in general it feels slower in some ways than my original Incredible.
- Any chance something could cause this or I might have a dud??
BACKGROUND
I bought this after owning an original Droid Eris, then upgrading to the 1st generation Droid Incredible. I'm a huge fan of the Sense interface (only thing that makes Android nice to me). But my Incredible was just getting a bit old and having problems with Sense crashing often, the browser always crashing when launched, etc.
So I got the Incredible 4G expecting at least a decently noticeable increase in overall smoothness and performance over the original Incredible, based on the much faster processor and newer OS. I knew it wasn't the absolute fastest phone out, but didn't need that. Just wanted something without a gigantic screen.
I got the phone brand new, and have put mostly very common and popular apps on it (e.g., Handcent, SwiftKey, Facebook, Rhapsody, Pandora, Flixter, etc). I'm using about 50-60% RAM, and about 60+% of available phone app storage space. There's a ton of space on internal card and external SD. Most running apps appear to be stock apps that I don't think I can disable or uninstall.
- Anything general to look for to determine causes or general sluggishness?
I 'might' be open to rooting this if there was a VERY stable build of 4.1 running Sense. I'm hoping JellyBean will help a bit in the performance area, but who knows if Verizon will ever release it.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also came directly from the OG Dinc. Mine is s-off and rooted running ViperLTE (link). It is indeed Sense-based, very quick, and VERY stable. If you like sense, you'll very much like the ViperLTE ROM. My Dinc4G is much faster and smoother than my s-off/rooted OG Dinc.
Thankfully, now you have a several methods for rooting. Browse through the Dinc4G Resource Index (link). I recommend first rooting and then eliminating all of the Verizon Bloatware which simply takes up space. That alone may speed up your phone. Install something like Titanium Backup and back up all of your current apps and settings, then try out the ViperLTE ROM if you like sense. (And then restore your apps & data from backup). There are now a few other good ROM choices available to try, such as an official release of CyanogenMod 10.1 (not sense based).
Edit: Its been a while since I did the s-off, but I remembered that you may not be able to to the TiB first, as you're not rooted. IIRC, all current rooting methods require running the RUU which will nuke all of your installed apps... it's worth the hassle to reinstall everything after rooting. Once you're rooted, then back everything up. Nandroid, and scheduled backups of your apps are a great idea. With the back-ups done, then you can play around with different ROMs and restore afterwards. Huge time saver.
Really looking for a good decently large android tablet. I like vanilla android a lot and specs seem really good for the Nexus 9. Looking at the reviews though it doesn't look so great (bad volume and power buttons, light leaks in the screen, lagging applications, etc.). For those of you that own it what do you think, would you recommend it?
I love my Nexus 9 and would strongly recommend it. I've had zero issues with it.
heissman said:
I love my Nexus 9 and would strongly recommend it. I've had zero issues with it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I love it too! Just got it yesterday and have zero issues. Love how fast it is. Total bliss.
primary question, what will you primarily use it for, media, web, reading, gaming (high end or low end) .
I personally use mine as a jack of all trades with very little gaming. ( my wife on the other hand would need the nvidia shield for her gaming obsession )
Sent from my Nexus 9 using Tapatalk
love my nexus 9
I've had almost every tablet out there. I have a habit of buying them as they are released and I have to say that this one is my favorite. The combo of lollipop and the tablet makes it feel like it's completely unique. Fast as hell, beautiful and it feels good as an ereader / comic reader without being too big.
Love this tablet.
Sent from my Nexus 9 using XDA Free mobile app
No.
di11igaf said:
No.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why?
USBhost said:
Why?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For ME, I don't want to be aggravated or pissed when using a tablet, which is exactly what the nexus 9 does. I've owned about every nexus device ever made, and this one is the worst (and best) user experience all in one. Mainly-
1) screen flicker. Every day. Always comes back after a reboot.
2) lag. I've had single core devices lag less than this thing. Literally. I know why its its lagging, and right now its unfixable.
3) after using a nexus 6 today, I am absolutely 100% convinced the n9 should have had 3 gigs of ram. This is the worst as this is something that wont be fixed until the NEXT nexus tablet comes out. The nexus 6 in a 24 hour period didn't hit low or critical ram states at all. Not one second. The 9 lives in these states. I had 5 chrome tabs open on the n6, while switching back and forth between all kinds of **** including games, and a page NEVER refreshed. It was wonderful, and made me realize the main thing I use the n9 for completely SUCKS compared to a phone. If anything, a tablet should be better at these things, not worse.
4) screen flicker
5 lag.
TheAppleAndroidGuy said:
Really looking for a good decently large android tablet. I like vanilla android a lot and specs seem really good for the Nexus 9. Looking at the reviews though it doesn't look so great (bad volume and power buttons, light leaks in the screen, lagging applications, etc.). For those of you that own it what do you think, would you recommend it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do recommend it but wait another month so you'd have a better chance of getting the newer revision which seem to have less issues with the buttons and lightbleed.
di11igaf said:
For ME, I don't want to be aggravated or pissed when using a tablet, which is exactly what the nexus 9 does. I've owned about every nexus device ever made, and this one is the worst (and best) user experience all in one. Mainly-
1) screen flicker. Every day. Always comes back after a reboot.
2) lag. I've had single core devices lag less than this thing. Literally. I know why its its lagging, and right now its unfixable.
3) after using a nexus 6 today, I am absolutely 100% convinced the n9 should have had 3 gigs of ram. This is the worst as this is something that wont be fixed until the NEXT nexus tablet comes out. The nexus 6 in a 24 hour period didn't hit low or critical ram states at all. Not one second. The 9 lives in these states. I had 5 chrome tabs open on the n6, while switching back and forth between all kinds of **** including games, and a page NEVER refreshed. It was wonderful, and made me realize the main thing I use the n9 for completely SUCKS compared to a phone. If anything, a tablet should be better at these things, not worse.
4) screen flicker
5 lag.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you do to get lag??
I get no lag here
I bet you will say because it only has 2g of ram
Thats why it lags
I say no thats not it
Like you said you multi task a lot
And thats has to be the only way to get lag.
True 2g of ram is small
And true it should have had 3 or even 4g of ram
I agree on you on that
i even have some screen flicker too but it is rare
Even on 1 brightness
But you say that you get lag on everything
Man i just cant believe it i cant
USBhost said:
What do you do to get lag??
I get no lag here
I bet you will say because it only has 2g of ram
Thats why it lags
I say no thats not it
Like you said you multi task a lot
And thats has to be the only way to get lag.
True 2g of ram is small
And true it should have had 3 or even 4g of ram
I agree on you on that
i even have some screen flicker too but it is rare
Even on 1 brightness
But you say that you get lag on everything
Man i just cant believe it i cant
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't get lag on everything. That's not what I'm saying, and which is why I also say its the best and worst experience on a tablet.
I don't really multitask a lot, no more than average I'd say. I literally use this tablet for a few things, web browsing, youtube, very light gaming. My multitasking involves switching between youtube and chrome, and rarely a light game.
What I am saying though is it does lag MORE than most devices I have. After a fresh reboot, even in safe mode so there is 0 third party apps running after a while this tablet gets hit with serious bouts of massive lag and stutter. I've always heard about android lag, blah blah, and always basically thought people were full of **** or being too picky because really I've never had a device that lagged or whatever. Ya an occasional hiccup with previous devices, but rarely and never too bad. Not with the 9. Its consistent after a few hours use..
Maybe since you are actively developing, you're rebooting often. When I was compiling kernels and aosp builds, I flashed multiple times a day, which I'm assuming you may be as well as fast as you're kernel is being updated. Chances are if you don't have these bouts of lag, that's why. Like you said you can't believe my device lags a lot, I can't believe the opposite. If after a few hours my tablet is starting to lag while in safe mode, I find it VERY hard to believe most people aren't seeing ANY lag. Maybe what I'm considering lag you aren't. I'm calling lag ui choppiness/stutters/unresponsive for multiple seconds after pressing something.
I know lag is not hardware- Denver seems to be beastly. Software?- parts maybe, but lollipop does not have these 'lag' periods on my nexus 4, nexus 5, or either of my two nexus 7 2013's. I personally don't think its a coincidence that my nexus 9 is the only one that spends its time in low and critical memory, and its the only one to lag. Add to that it ONLY seems to lag bad while in these states. With all this said, what else is causing lag? Especially when it happens in safe mode- so third party apps are out of the question they are not the main cause. Something causes this lag, maybe its not lack of ram, but it sure seems that way so far- if memory leaks were fixed , maybe this will become a non issue. System ui and android system shouldn't be consuming 300mb a piece, which is what they will swell to after a few days.
On top of this, there is a reason google is using zram on this device and no other nexus, and its not because they're are testing it out or whatever else I've heard. They knew 2 gigs probably wasn't quite enough. Why else would they do this?
I just took this screen shot- this is actually better than usual. I'm curious if you don't have lag what this screen looks like for you, set to 24 hour period?
di11igaf said:
I don't get lag on everything. That's not what I'm saying, and which is why I also say its the best and worst experience on a tablet.
I don't really multitask a lot, no more than average I'd say. I literally use this tablet for a few things, web browsing, youtube, very light gaming. My multitasking involves switching between youtube and chrome, and rarely a light game.
What I am saying though is it does lag MORE than most devices I have. After a fresh reboot, even in safe mode so there is 0 third party apps running after a while this tablet gets hit with serious bouts of massive lag and stutter. I've always heard about android lag, blah blah, and always basically thought people were full of **** or being too picky because really I've never had a device that lagged or whatever. Ya an occasional hiccup with previous devices, but rarely and never too bad. Not with the 9. Its consistent after a few hours use..
Maybe since you are actively developing, you're rebooting often. When I was compiling kernels and aosp builds, I flashed multiple times a day, which I'm assuming you may be as well as fast as you're kernel is being updated. Chances are if you don't have these bouts of lag, that's why. Like you said you can't believe my device lags a lot, I can't believe the opposite. If after a few hours my tablet is starting to lag while in safe mode, I find it VERY hard to believe most people aren't seeing ANY lag. Maybe what I'm considering lag you aren't. I'm calling lag ui choppiness/stutters/unresponsive for multiple seconds after pressing something.
I know lag is not hardware- Denver seems to be beastly. Software?- parts maybe, but lollipop does not have these 'lag' periods on my nexus 4, nexus 5, or either of my two nexus 7 2013's. I personally don't think its a coincidence that my nexus 9 is the only one that spends its time in low and critical memory, and its the only one to lag. Add to that it ONLY seems to lag bad while in these states. With all this said, what else is causing lag? Especially when it happens in safe mode- so third party apps are out of the question they are not the main cause. Something causes this lag, maybe its not lack of ram, but it sure seems that way so far- if memory leaks were fixed , maybe this will become a non issue. System ui and android system shouldn't be consuming 300mb a piece, which is what they will swell to after a few days.
On top of this, there is a reason google is using zram on this device and no other nexus, and its not because they're are testing it out or whatever else I've heard. They knew 2 gigs probably wasn't quite enough. Why else would they do this?
I just took this screen shot- this is actually better than usual. I'm curious if you don't have lag what this screen looks like for you, set to 24 hour period?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
O ok ty for verifying
Also how do you get to that screen
Edit: found it
di11igaf said:
I don't get lag on everything. That's not what I'm saying, and which is why I also say its the best and worst experience on a tablet.
I don't really multitask a lot, no more than average I'd say. I literally use this tablet for a few things, web browsing, youtube, very light gaming. My multitasking involves switching between youtube and chrome, and rarely a light game.
What I am saying though is it does lag MORE than most devices I have. After a fresh reboot, even in safe mode so there is 0 third party apps running after a while this tablet gets hit with serious bouts of massive lag and stutter. I've always heard about android lag, blah blah, and always basically thought people were full of **** or being too picky because really I've never had a device that lagged or whatever. Ya an occasional hiccup with previous devices, but rarely and never too bad. Not with the 9. Its consistent after a few hours use..
Maybe since you are actively developing, you're rebooting often. When I was compiling kernels and aosp builds, I flashed multiple times a day, which I'm assuming you may be as well as fast as you're kernel is being updated. Chances are if you don't have these bouts of lag, that's why. Like you said you can't believe my device lags a lot, I can't believe the opposite. If after a few hours my tablet is starting to lag while in safe mode, I find it VERY hard to believe most people aren't seeing ANY lag. Maybe what I'm considering lag you aren't. I'm calling lag ui choppiness/stutters/unresponsive for multiple seconds after pressing something.
I know lag is not hardware- Denver seems to be beastly. Software?- parts maybe, but lollipop does not have these 'lag' periods on my nexus 4, nexus 5, or either of my two nexus 7 2013's. I personally don't think its a coincidence that my nexus 9 is the only one that spends its time in low and critical memory, and its the only one to lag. Add to that it ONLY seems to lag bad while in these states. With all this said, what else is causing lag? Especially when it happens in safe mode- so third party apps are out of the question they are not the main cause. Something causes this lag, maybe its not lack of ram, but it sure seems that way so far- if memory leaks were fixed , maybe this will become a non issue. System ui and android system shouldn't be consuming 300mb a piece, which is what they will swell to after a few days.
On top of this, there is a reason google is using zram on this device and no other nexus, and its not because they're are testing it out or whatever else I've heard. They knew 2 gigs probably wasn't quite enough. Why else would they do this?
I just took this screen shot- this is actually better than usual. I'm curious if you don't have lag what this screen looks like for you, set to 24 hour period?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you think this is fixable at all in updates, if so, why/how?
borchgrevink said:
Do you think this is fixable at all in updates, if so, why/how?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hope so. I do like everything about it, besides said issues. Form factor, performance is good and smooth as butter a lot of the time, but when its bad its really bad IMO. It seems like there are big memory leaks with lollipop in general, and they seem to be worse on the nexus 9. Hopefully if they are fixed it will help with my(and other people's) issues.
Deleted
If you must have a pure android experience. Then it's a no Brainer. This is the tablet for you. And it's future proof.. meaning that the 64 bit processor is going to kick the **** out of the competition (once app developers take advantage of it ).
The galaxy tab series is also really good. But unfortunately. it has touchwiz. but that can be corrected with a custom ROM.
So far I'm pleased with my nexus 9.
Sent from my SGH-I337M using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Hello
I'm thinking of getting the Nexus 9 as well. Plus, it's going to be my first tablet ever. Because of the prices I can only afford the 16GB model (white). Do you think this will be enough space? I know after the first use of the tablet there are only ~ 9GB left, but I think of only using it for creating and editing documents, watching movies (not that much), surfing, ... just basic stuff.
To "upgrade" the storage I read that the Nexus 9 is supporting USB OTG so in case I run out of space, I can simply plug in a stick for additional space, can't I?
Is there anything I have to look for before purchasing? I'll try out the tablet in a local electronic store, I'm aware of light bleeding and the problems of the back of the tablet. But is there anything more?
It would be nice if you can tell me something about your experiences!
Thanks in advance
.vermilion said:
Hello
I'm thinking of getting the Nexus 9 as well. Plus, it's going to be my first tablet ever. Because of the prices I can only afford the 16GB model (white). Do you think this will be enough space? I know after the first use of the tablet there are only ~ 9GB left, but I think of only using it for creating and editing documents, watching movies (not that much), surfing, ... just basic stuff.
To "upgrade" the storage I read that the Nexus 9 is supporting USB OTG so in case I run out of space, I can simply plug in a stick for additional space, can't I?
Is there anything I have to look for before purchasing? I'll try out the tablet in a local electronic store, I'm aware of light bleeding and the problems of the back of the tablet. But is there anything more?
It would be nice if you can tell me something about your experiences!
Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It will have 11.5 free for the 16gb one
Otg is fine and awesome
USBhost said:
It will have 11.5 free for the 16gb one
Otg is fine and awesome
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That sounds great so far!
I read that there are 11,5GB free but only ~ 9GB "for use". Can you confirm that? But anyways, I'm not going to use it for huge amounts of music and pictures so I guess (and hope, haha ) that it'll be enough space available.
A lot of complaints of lag and freezing seem to be due to not enough random access memory. Shame that a nicely built tablet with great specs (Qi charging, 64-bit processor, vanilla Android) would be useless to many because of this issue.
I got one for $133 new from the Dell outlet with a sweet case for $15 both in red and gave it to Mom for Christmas, knowing that for her use it would be acceptable.
Here's what I found and how I've gotten the tablet to work great and have none of the issues.
1. Stick with the stock KK launcher. Forget Google Now or Nova as these use up too much memory.
2. The stock browser seems to work the best. Dolphin, Boat and others have been reported to be problem free too. Chrome is a no go.
3. Under Developer options shut off the animations as well as limit the background processes.
4. Disable anything you'll never use, and only install the apps needed.
5. Under "Google" account and "search" make sure Google Now is off.
These things may be self evident to some, but you will notice a night and day difference in the way this particular tablet operates if you stick to those things. At $130 it can't be beat.
Apologies for responding to my own post, just wanted to update, apparently Dell pushed out a OTA update recently that updated the kernel and the thing is much improved if not downright zippy now. Still would stick with my suggestions as I've noticed while Chrome may be somewhat usable it will still freeze.
Thanks for the tips. Despite the horrible reviews, I just ordered one from Amazon Warehouse for $75 Very Good condition. At that price, it is worth taking the plunge.
Use the stock browser keep off any RAM hogging apps and you'll like it. For $168 total I got a red one , the official red case and the dell wireless charger. Can't beat that price. It particularly excels as a movie watching device for travel. Good size and format, great battery life and storage with an optional SD card, and a 1080p screen. Seems to handle video playback really well too, stutter free.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using XDA Free mobile app
We're taking it on the plane for movies in 3 weeks, so that'll be perfect. Have you tried rooting and Greenify app? That could further help keep the background processes in check. I have a 1st gen; wife will get the 2nd gen, but if I like it enough, I might get another one for myself.
No I haven't mainly because of the amount of bricks being reported. Too much headache and since its my mothers there's no point. Lol. You'll love it for watching movies I swear they look better than on my Nexus 9. Maybe that Intel video enhancer or whatever its got really works well. The speakers are loud and sound great too.
Sent from my Nexus 9 using XDA Free mobile app
So I've had the tablet for a week now. The amount of bloatware pre-installed was insane. I was surprised since the 1st gen 3830 came with almost zero. After disabling all bloatware and all google apps, disabling animations, disable sync, disable backup & restore, it's running fairly well. Chrome browser is definitely not happening. Stock browser is good, but opening multiple tabs is still guaranteed to make the tablet lag.
All in all, this is a great tablet for someone who only does one thing at a time (No multiple browser tabs and switching back and forth between apps). 1920 x 1200 Screen is awesome, build quality fantastic, thin and fairly light, 802.11ac wireless, wireless charging, almost pure Android, and good enough battery life. This thing is perfect for my wife and was a steal at $75 from Amazon Warehouse. Got a $7 case from eBay and my wife is loving it. It's a big upgrade from her Nexus 7 2012.
That being said, I will not be picking another one up for myself unless we get a magic update that makes it as fast as my 3830. I like to multitask, so that's priority for me.
P.S. After all updates, I ran Antutu and the tab scored 33,000 vs 24,000 for my 3830. Sadly, real world experience doesn't reflect this.
waingro808 said:
So I've had the tablet for a week now. The amount of bloatware pre-installed was insane. I was surprised since the 1st gen 3830 came with almost zero. After disabling all bloatware and all google apps, disabling animations, disable sync, disable backup & restore, it's running fairly well. Chrome browser is definitely not happening. Stock browser is good, but opening multiple tabs is still guaranteed to make the tablet lag.
All in all, this is a great tablet for someone who only does one thing at a time (No multiple browser tabs and switching back and forth between apps). 1920 x 1200 Screen is awesome, build quality fantastic, thin and fairly light, 802.11ac wireless, wireless charging, almost pure Android, and good enough battery life. This thing is perfect for my wife and was a steal at $75 from Amazon Warehouse. Got a $7 case from eBay and my wife is loving it. It's a big upgrade from her Nexus 7 2012.
That being said, I will not be picking another one up for myself unless we get a magic update that makes it as fast as my 3830. I like to multitask, so that's priority for me.
P.S. After all updates, I ran Antutu and the tab scored 33,000 vs 24,000 for my 3830. Sadly, real world experience doesn't reflect this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol, my mother went from my hand me down N7(2012) to this and so far, with the way I've set it up, she likes it for her style of use. It really is a shame as if the darn thing had 3 (gasp!) gigs of Ram it would be a killer little tablet, the fact that you can pick them up so cheap is another huge plus.
Hi! CJ, I have a Dell Venue 8 3840, and for some reason I'm unaware of, it's WIFI, & BLUETOOTH, have completely being "lost", I.E. the icons, the Settings options etc.... Have " disappeared ".
I would be most grateful for your advice on it's recovery.
Thanks & regards,
Mahil.
Hmmm, never heard of that happening before. I could ask you a bunch of questions to see what may have caused it but instead my advice would be do a reset. Under settings/back up & reset/ factory reset. Back up whatever files you don't want to lose, the cloud works great for that, and then reset. See if that brings it back.
Venue 8 touch screen freezing issue
I had bought my tablet online. It was working well initially. Then suddenly from one day the screen started to freeze once it was not in use for minimum 7-8 seconds although the tab was not hanging, just the tablet touch screen was not responding to touch.
my dell venue 8 3840 has kitkat 4.4.4. WiFi Bluetooth is not working at all. when i press on in the WiFi option, it goes to on but color doesn't change, i mean it keeps grey and it doesn't scan any WiFi signals. nothing happens on the screen. its like frozen. add device and reset options on WiFi menu are also freeze. when i come out of WiFi menu, it automatically turns off. i have already reset my tab 2 3 times to check if the issue resolves but the prob persists. advanced options are working. when i go there, it says mac address and IP address unavailable. and these options are also freeze. am not getting a clue of what has happened and how to get it fixed. plz help.
Dell Venue 8 8340 slow fix
Hey guys,
I have found a solution for the extremely slow performance of the Dell Venue 8 8340. You must disable wi-fi optimization in settings --> wifi --> advanced. After disabling this feature, the tablet runs fairly smooth with no crashing or delays. This may be a temporary fix; however, it does seem to affect the tablets performance. Also, I did not have the time to check if this fix has been posted, sorry for the repeat if it has. Please update on whether or not this tweak works for others.
Setting 'Developer Options' -> 'Background Processes' to 'At most 2 Processes' seems to help with performance. Reboots and updates sometimes reset this to the default though.
Sent from my VS990 using XDA Free mobile app
This is a new 2048x1536 clone from Best Buy. It has Rockchip RK3288 processor with a Broadcom BCM4350 WiFi AC/BT4.0/FM radio. It came with Android 5.0.1. As usual from the Chinese, the SW leaves much to be desired. In fact the Regulatory Information page is for the N9. It went the FCC as MID7802 and pictures and user manual are post there. I grabbed one for $150. I was interested since it supports HEVC/H.265. It plays them flawlessly. It scored 785 on AnTuTu video test v3.0. The speed test was 38005. Screen looks good. Now for the bad.
1. Won't turn on when off and charger connected.
2. Adaptive brightness doesn't use the control. Really bright and drains battery.
3. SDcard only accessible for stock apps. ES3 or Kodi can't see it. Probably mounted root only.
4. Camera app is really primitive. No option to record as HEVC even though HW encoding supported.
Any thoughts on this tablet and how easy or hard it would be to get a good ROM on it?
Hmm, the bad looks like stuff that could be fixed with a software update. Though I've yet to see an adaptive brightness option that was any good. I almost always adjust manually. I never really use camera functions on my tablets. The part where it won't turn on while charging is a bit disturbing though.
Battery drains while screen sleeps like crazy
decent tab
I managed to pick the flex elite 7.85" tablet up @ my local Best Buy yesterday for a discounted price of only $90 and so far very happy with it for the cost. Not sure I would be so happy at the full $150...maybe so though.
Battery life isn't the greatest even with a good battery saving app. Doesn't bother me to much though because I usually have my tabs plugged into the wall outlet.
Some things I like are the beautiful display and greatly bright lighting, makes it easy to use outside or in. Also like the quick responsiveness and sensitive touch screen. It's not so sensitive that you're accidentally hitting things you don't want to but plenty sensitive to pick up on the intentional hits. I like the thin style (only 0.3" thin, I think). Although it's plastic it feels solid and higher end in the hands. All in all it's just a decent tab for the average user...although maybe not so much for the enthusiast.
A couple things I don't like are that there are no accessories available for it at all. I'm rough on electronics (drop alot) and a good, solid case is near necessity for me. Still ticked off about dropping my Sero 7 PRO and killing it last year...man, was that ever a nice tab?!
Another thing I am a bit disenchanted with is no root instruction yet available and no ROM that I know of...been searching and hoping. I also read somewhere that it's not possible to write to the micro SD card from the tablet...if true, that really sucks! Though I rarely use a micro SD card with tabs, it's nice to be able to use them to keep onboard space freed up. I still need to buy a micro SD to test this last statement for myself, so can't guarantee the accuracy of the statement.
Anyway, decent tab that will probably fulfill my web browsing, shopping and WordPress needs for the next year so can't complain for a $90 investment. I don't expect any updates to the firmware over it's lifetime and really not to hopeful for a root instructional to be written but still pretty decent out of the box so far....I'll let you know about the possible microsd issue once I find out for myself.
OK, so I found out that the microsd card is difficult to get mounted and working correctly on this tablet (unfortunately I'm no geek). But I was finally able to use an app to xfer files after formatting the SD card to ntsf instead of fat32. Still a pita but got it working.
Now if only someone would make an easy root instructional for this thing I might actually keep it for a while
Alrighty, got one of these and so far it's been good for its price.
I can turn it off and on while charging, both sleep/wake and full power off/power on.
The brightness seems fine to me, but again I've not used adaptive as I've never had a tab with a worthwhile adaptive brightness, and I've had Nexus 7 and 9, Galaxy Tabs pro and S, and a half dozen others.
Getting an SD later today for it.
Battery life isn't great, but I'm not seeing the sleep drain I keep reading about.
As has been mentioned the SD is only visible to system apps. Unless you format it NTFS, then it can be found by other apps. Need to figure out how to make shortcuts/symbolic links so it can be reached from areas other than /mnt as I think some apps expect it to show up in the storage folder and other places.
It's fast and snappy. Display is crisp & nice and bright and is the perfect size. I too am seeing unexpected battery drain overnight (losing 50% of battery) while the tablet is sleeping. I wish the battery lasted longer on standby as my needs are to read to fall asleep and then wake up and study - the Tab A has a longer lasting battery than this. Takes a long time to boot up if it's entirely shut down. It refuses to run Netflix either in the Netflix app nor in the browser. I have all the latest updates of the OS plus Netflix but it's not working. It's a shame but I am today returning it to BestBuy due to the Netflix issue which I consider a core app. WINS: Display is awesome and CPU speed is very good! CONS: Won't play Netflix, battery life is weak, takes long to boot up.
still no sign of 4rd party rooms?
in the market for something to replace my POS dell 8 tablet. can anyone say how insignia is on updates? will this get 6?
Oma has made a rom for it at arctablet.com
bbobb said:
Oma has made a rom for it at arctablet.com
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
link?
cannot post links.
google 'insignia flex elite oma root'
should be top result.
Got to page 4, post 49.
micro sdcard should be formatted ntfs
i just bought this tablet used
i think my rom is hosed, it has a system process kill at startup and it is very laggy. it also shuts down is left to sleep for more then 5min. a factory reset doesnt change anything... but ive seen this before... nothing short of a full rom wipe fixes it. that's the real danger of chinese tablets, if you hose the os there is no way to fix it...
im trying to root it and put oma rom on it, to see if that fixes the software issues. i dont think its hardware, because once im in a game or app it runs lightning quick. even games like mortal kombat with their high end graphics run smooth... its really somethin on this screen.
boot time SUCKS on this tablet. like, 4min or something. what the hell insignia? you cant optimize this rom even a little bit?
I like the tablet. I have seen several software updates (didn't check the build numbers) before I flashed Oma's ROM. It still has a long boot time, but if you go to the developer options, and turn off the animation options, it feels pretty fast (definitely faster than anything that is even close to this price range). Oma's current rom doesn't fix the Netflix app issue. Maybe an update can figure out what the conflict is?
superhumvee said:
I like the tablet. I have seen several software updates (didn't check the build numbers) before I flashed Oma's ROM. It still has a long boot time, but if you go to the developer options, and turn off the animation options, it feels pretty fast (definitely faster than anything that is even close to this price range). Oma's current rom doesn't fix the Netflix app issue. Maybe an update can figure out what the conflict is?
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I just got one yesterday. I didn't update to the December update, but I flashed oma's rom (pretty sure I did?), rooted with king root and then replaced with super su and the boot up time is much much faster than stock. I want to say less than a minute vs. close to 3 or 4 before.
I bought two of these used off eBay, both seem to suffer from sound stutter/slight freeze ups once in awhile. I've reset both and made sure they are running the current OTA update.
It seems to mostly do it for Youtube and YouTube for Kids, but notice it once in awhile during some more graphic intense games. Which surprises me as from the specs at least this should be a pretty decent budget tablet.
I just picked up a "seller refurbished" on from Ebay -- there are a *ton* of them up there at the moment. It actually looks pretty decent. The battery life is *horrible* (about 4 hours of SOT for reading or web surfing), but the rest of the flaws can be worked around.
First off was setting the window animations to zero, as suggested here earlier, followed by KingRoot and SU substitution (also as suggested). Then, from the Store:
- SDFix:KitKat Writable MicroSD and
- Folder Mount
combined to let me store app data on the microSD.
- FlashFire did a great job of installing Xposed Framework and from there I can tweak to my hearts' content (Greenify, GravityBox, and XSSID Indicator so far)!
Right now, it looks like your best bet would be Oma's rom that someone mentioned earlier, which would be rooted and let you do some customization. I don't use KingRoot because there's some report that the software collects data on you without your consent. What with all the rumors about Xiaomi snooping on you and China's officially-sanctioned practices in cyber space, you don't want to assume unnecessary risks. Bad enough that Uncle Sam is looking over your shoulder, but China?? Do the math!
Back to the matter at hand. Looks like your tab will be stuck with Lollipop forever (1) because the sales of this model is low enough not to stimulate any interest in developing custom roms; (2) manufacturer's support is non-existent (I mean literally non-existent); (3) if you get a representative to answer, the person doesn't know enough to say anything beyond what's in the manual; and (4) they categorically refuse to release even a stock rom for the user to restore where the tab is bricked by their own OTA updates!!! What sets them apart is that I know of no other reputable manufacturer that would so adamantly oppose such potential remedies. Unbelievable! The only recourse is warranty - which means if you're outside that period, you're toast, even if the hardware is in perfectly working order.
To recap, absolutely no support and no update. Promulgating a policy that drives away consumers is of course their prerogative, but why they care so much about losing business is beyond me. So think hard before shelling out for their products. Low prices and enticing specs ain't worth crap if the tablet doesn't work at all.